Object. Legacy. Significance.

‘Object. Legacy. Significance.’
2025
Photography, digital printing, textile, PVC film.

When visiting Tomsk for the first time and studying its wooden architecture, I noticed the contrast between the significance of the houses, which are cultural heritage objects of regional significance and their actual condition, and their exterior appearance. Broken glass, ruined structures, shrivelled buildings and cluttered neighbourhoods. Crumbling houses are losing their cultural and domestic function.

In my piece I refer to a sociological study called Broken Windows Theory, developed by James Wilson and George Kelly in 1982. The theory argues that ignoring destruction leads to further decay. The broken window serves as a metaphor for the ruin of architecture.

Real-life sites in a state of ruin are at odds with the cultural community's efforts to preserve our history and collective memory. Ruins are the product of a gradual process of forgetting the past.